1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to the field of language education, and more specifically to a computer program for training a human""s auditory processing system to discriminate between and accurately identify similarly sounding phonemes or words, and to associate representative graphemes with the phonemes or words.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to ten percent of children have language-learning impairments (LLI) resulting from the inability to accurately process short duration acoustic events at the rates that occur in normal speech. Their trouble distinguishing among elements of speech is neurologically based and has far reaching consequences, including: academic failure, emotional and disciplinary problems, and possibly diminished lifelong achievement and self-image. No bracket of intelligence, race, gender or economic level is immune from this problem.
More specifically, Children with LLI have difficulty detecting and identifying sounds that occur simultaneously or in close proximity to each otherxe2x80x94a phenomenon known as xe2x80x9cmasking.xe2x80x9d Because of masking, children with LLI require sounds that are as much as 45 decibels more intense than a preceding or subsequent masking noise to distinguish and understand them. In addition, children with LLI are consistently poorer at detecting a brief tone presented with a masking noise, particularly when the brief tone is turned on immediately prior to the masking noise. This phenomenon is called xe2x80x9cbackward masking.xe2x80x9d Similarly, when the brief tone is turned on immediately after the masking noise a similar decrease in detectability can occur. This phenomenon is called xe2x80x9cforward maskingxe2x80x9d. For a tone to be detected by a child with LLI in the presence of a masking noise, the tone must be separated in time or frequency from the masking noise.
The inability to accurately distinguish and process short duration sounds often causes children to fall behind in school. Since the children can""t accurately interpret many language sounds, they can""t remember which symbols represent which sounds. This deficiency causes difficulties in learning to read (translating from symbols to sounds), and in spelling. In fact, it is common for a child with LLI to fall two to three years behind his/her peers in speech, language and reading development.
One way children develop such auditory processing problems is from middle ear infections when they are young and beginning to develop the oral representations of language in the central auditory nervous system. When a child has an ear infection, fluid can build up and block or muffle the sound wave entering the ear causing intermittent hearing loss. Even if the infection doesn""t permanently damage the ear, the child""s brain doesn""t learn to process some sounds because it hasn""t heard them accurately before, on a consistent basis. This typically occurs during a critical period of brain development when the brain is building the nerve connections necessary to accurately process acoustic events associated with normal speech.
Researchers believe that the auditory processing problem is essentially one of timing. Vowel sounds like /a/ and /e/ usually last at least 100 milliseconds and typically have constant frequency content. Consonants, on the other hand, typically have modulated frequency components, and last less than 40 milliseconds. Children with LLI cannot process these faster speech elements, especially the hard consonants like /t/, /p/, /d/ and /b/, if they occur either immediately before or after vowels, or if they are located near other consonants. Rather than hearing the individual sounds that make up a particular phoneme, children with LLI integrate closely associated sounds together over time. Since the duration of vowels are typically longer than consonants, the modulated frequency portions of consonants are often lost in the integration, an affect that may also hinder the resolution of the vowel, particularly short duration vowels.
This problem of abnormal temporal integration of acoustic events over time is not limited to children with LLI. Rather, the problem extends to stroke victims who have lost the neurological connections necessary to process speech, as well as to individuals raised in one country, having one set of language phonemes, and attempting to learn the language of another country, having a distinct set of language phonemes. For example, it is known that an individual raised in Japan is not often presented with phonemes similar to the English r""s and l""s, because those consonants are not common in the Japanese language. Similarly, there are many subtleties in the sounds made by a speaker of Japanese that are difficult to distinguish unless raised in Japan. The phonetic differences between languages are distinctions that must be learned, and are often very difficult. But, they are clearly problems that relate to the temporal processing of short duration acoustic events.
The above described temporal processing deficiency has little if anything to do with intelligence. In fact, some LLI specialists argue that brains choosing this different route by which to absorb and reassemble bits of speech may actually stimulate creative intelligence, but at the expense of speech and reading problems.
Recent studies have shown that if the acoustic events associated with phonemes that are difficult to distinguish, such as /ba/ and /da/, are slowed down, or that the consonant portion of the phonemes are emphasized, that students diagnosed as LLI can accurately distinguish between the phonemes. In addition, if the interval between two complex sounds is lengthened, LLI students are better able to process the sounds distinctly.
Heretofore, the solution to the processing problem has been to place LLI students in extended special education and/or speech therapy training programs that focus on speech recognition and speech production. Or, more commonly, repetitive reading programs, phonic games, or other phonic programs are undertaken. These programs often last for years, with a success rate that is often more closely associated with the skill of the speech and language professional than with the program of study.
What is needed is a method and apparatus that allows a subject with abnormal temporal processing to train, or retrain their brain to recognize and distinguish short duration acoustic events that are common in speech. Moreover, what is needed is a program that repetitively trains a subject to distinguish phonemes at a normal rate, by emphasizing elements of speech to the point that they are distinguishable, and then adaptively adjusting the emphasis of the speech elements to the level of normal speech. The adaptive adjustments should be made so as to encourage the subject to continue with the repetitions, and the number of repetitions should be sufficient to develop the necessary neurological connections for normal temporal processing of speech. Moreover, the program should provide acoustic signals to the brain that are better for phonetic training than normal human speech.
Furthermore, what is needed is a program that trains a subject to discriminate between similar phonemes in increasingly complex situations (i.e., identifying sounds at the beginning, middle and end of words), to identify sequences of stimuli that are delivered in rapid succession (i.e., at speeds common in normal speech), and to begin associating phonemes with particular graphic representations (graphemes).
To address the above-detailed deficiencies, the present invention provides a method for adaptively training a subject""s listening comprehension using processed speech. The method includes: presenting a visual story to the subject, accompanied with an auditory narration, the auditory narration being played using a speech processing; presenting questions to the subject that are related to the presented story, the questions having visual and auditory components, the auditory components using speech processing; and the story and questions for different speech processing levels.
In another aspect, the present invention provides a method for training a subject""s language comprehension by using an animated story, the animated story having visual and auditory components, the auditory components processed according to different speech processing levels. The method includes: providing different skill levels for training the subject, the skill levels having a different questions; presenting a question to the subject, the question having a visual component and an auditory component, the auditory component processed according to one of the speech processing levels; repeating presentation of a question; and when the subject reaches a predetermined correct response threshold, changing the speech processing level used to process the auditory component of a question.
In yet another aspect, the present invention provides a method for adaptively training a subject""s serial order command comprehension by using an animated story, the animated story having visual and auditory components, the auditory components processed according to different speech processing levels. The method includes: providing categories for training the subject""s serial order comprehension, the categories having selection/manipulation commands; providing graphical objects that may be selected or manipulated by the subject, the graphical objects associated with the animated story; playing the selection/manipulation commands, the commands auditorily processed according by the different of speech processing levels; requiring the subject to select or manipulate the graphical objects according to the played selection/manipulation commands; and repeating the above for each of the provided categories.
In a further aspect, the present invention provides a method for improving a subject""s comprehension of spoken language using processed speech within a plurality of animated stories. The method includes: providing selection/manipulation games, each of the games having a questions or commands related to animated stories, each of the questions or commands having visual and auditory components, the auditory components processed by different speech processing levels; narrating at least a portion of one of the animated stories, the narration having graphical animations and speech processed according to one of the plurality of speech processing levels; presenting the questions or commands for the selection/manipulation games, the auditory components of the presented questions or commands processed according to the different speech processing levels; when a subject correctly responds to the questions or commands according to a predetermined threshold, repeating the narration and questions for a different animated story using a different speech processing level.